RADtech
by cHeRRy bloSSoM72
Summary: Fresh from the books and new to the hospital work scene, Roxas was just getting his second year of radiography school done. Axel, well Axel just happened to break a lot of bones. Life's all about those wild curve balls. Eventual axel x roxas


August

Roxas had been accepted into the Radiography program at his university during his senior year. Getting his acceptance letter the summer before he started was the emotional start to what he believed to be the first real step in his adult life.

After finishing year one, which consisted of 3 non-stop grueling semesters, (including giving up a leisurely summer) 2 nervous break downs, and almost failing a class, or two, he was burnt out from it all. It was all worth it though when he finally walked out of that final class, knowing he had passed.

Year two consisted of an internship, and although he hadn't been placed at his number one hospital site, he had to admit his number two was a better option for him in the long run. At least this way he'd be moving home where he'd have life rent and bill free. Considering he'd be working forty hours a week for free at his internship, he needed the breaks where he could get them.

His classes had ended the second week of August, which left him 2 weeks to do as he pleased before he had to report for duty at Twilight County Hospital.

Roxas also had a whole 7 days before his lease ended for the room he had been subleasing in his fraternity house. Thankfully his mom and siblings had come and packed most of his belongings away in a giant U-Haul the week before. He hadn't realized how much crap a person could accumulate living 3 hours away on your own for 4 years.

It was a Wednesday that his last class landed on, and Roxas walked out of that class feeling light and hopeful. He drove himself back to his empty room in the giant, empty fraternity house, and promptly fell into a rested sleep.

He woke up later that day with his kitten nestled soundly on top of his chest. It was a good way to wake up. What was better was the fact that the only obligations he had left in his college town was a forty hour work weekend.

Fast forward through the hell weekend, his last hell weekend, at The Boulder (the on campus dining facility), and that Sunday night he moved all his remaining crap out of the bedroom and into the little nook area to store.

Roxas had hardly done anything fun for the summer and like hell he was going to move home without any type of fun being had. His plan was to vacate his room of his things, which he had to do by noon on Wednesday, and then head up north for some camping with his boyfriend. Seeing as the drive would be 5 hours long and he was to be gone from Sunday night until that Wednesday…well he had to plan things out in advance. There was no way he'd be waking up at 6am for the drive home.

Fast forward again to camping up north surrounded by trees, waterfalls and beautiful lakes, and some fun tent sex. And by Tuesday Roxas was ready to go home.

Roxas' boyfriend of 3 years, Hayner, had been gradually grinding his gears with all these little annoyances which had thrown him into a perpetual bad mood by this point. After 3 years of dating, one would think that Hayner would be aware of things that made Roxas highly irritable.

Besides the general annoyance at Hayner, the trip was awesome, and a great way for Roxas to end his time with in the northern part of the state. After driving back to pick up the things he was storing at the fraternity house and swooping up his kitten, which he still couldn't pick out a name for, (he tactfully called him kitten in the meantime), and then he was on his way for another three hour drive home.

Arriving home, the place was chaos. Roxas' family was also currently in the process of moving from one house to another. A few months ago his grandfather had passed away and with his mother's inheritance, they bought the house he left behind.

The next week and a half home Roxas spent his time painting, cleaning and moving. The move itself wasn't too bad, the house was only 5 minutes away from the home they were all moving from.

By the time things were all said and done, it was Monday, August 31st, and Roxas was walking through the winding doors of Twilight County Hospital.

Week 1: Fluoroscopy

Roxas walked straight ahead, into the hospital, passing by an information desk, where no one sat to inform, into another set of sliding doors, passed a coffee stand with couches and tables on the other side, up a set of 5 steps, passed another empty information center and forward still, following the signs pointing towards diagnostic imaging.

It was a few minutes past seven in the morning and Roxas was exhausted as he made his way into the diagnostic imaging break room, where his fellow interns, Olette Deja and Pence Wright stood.

The break room looked just as it had during his site visit he had made the winter before. Walking in past the heavy door, on the left was a table with seven chairs placed around it, a countertop behind it with various kitchen appliances sitting atop. At the end of the counter was a cart where the interns were able to place their belongings, it was their "locker" so to say. In front of the cart on the adjacent wall was a fridge. Next to the fridge was a sink and next to the sink was a half wall with a window, the setup of it was much like that of an x-ray room, making Roxas wonder if the room had started out as one to begin with. On the right of the entrance were lockers for all of the technologists that worked there.

Roxas awkwardly placed his belongings on the intern cart, while taking it all in. Olette and Pence were luckily friends he had made in the program. He was glad he wasn't at a site that only accepted one student. Having comrades would make this process easier, he hoped.

After all three of them stood there laughing and commenting on how they were unsure of where to park in the parking structure across from the entrance, their ACI, Tifa Lockheart walked in. Roxas could never remember what ACI stood for, it was something like clinical instructor…basically she was in charge of the students.

"Hey guys! I trust you all made it in okay? Feel free to put whatever you want in the fridge." Tifa talked with strong, quick and precise words. Though she was kind, she was assertive and a little intimidating. Seeing no one move toward the fridge she promptly moved on. "Okay so, the list for you rotations is out here," she showed the three the list sitting on the other side of the break room. "So Olette you'll be in ER, Roxas in fluoro, and Pence will be routine and portables. Guys this is Xion and Kairi, they're both techs here, guys this is the new interns, Roxas, Pence and Olette." She pointed to each of them in turn gesturing to two petite girls.

"Hi guys," the wine haired girl, Kairi, greeted them with a smile, while the dark haired girl, Xion, nodded towards them with a small smile of her own.

The room they were in now was what Roxas considered the heart of the diagnostic imaging department. There were to long narrow counters in the center, each with a computer and small scanning machine sitting atop them. The computers sat facing the outside with a chair at each and two chairs in the center, in between both of the counters. Roxas considered this the room the heart because it attached to most of all the other rooms in the department.

Rooms A and C were what was considered the "routine rooms". This was where all patients with a script from their doctor came for their x-rays.

Room D and the hardly used E were fluoroscopy rooms.

And well, at this point that was really all Roxas new. He hadn't done or seen much here during his site visit. He had done it a couple days before Christmas the previous year, it had been slow.

"So, badges. We will get you guys badges so that you guys can get around the hospital and stuff, do you guys have any questions for me? The badges we'll have to do later, there's this weird time where you can't go, like at 7:30 or something, I'm not sure, I'll have to check. For now you guys just go ahead and get to it, don't be afraid to ask question and get in there and do stuff. The techs are here to help, they won't let you hurt anybody or do anything wrong. Olette, I'll take you over to the ER."

And with that Tifa made her exit with Olette in tow, heading out of the break room door.

Roxas walked over to room D, the fluoro room, the rotation he had hoped he would not be starting in. He felt ill prepared to deal with the barium and edemas…the positioning for patients had been confusing for him when his professors had gone over it in the summer semester. He definitely hoped he wouldn't be sticking barium up a patients butt on his first day. Honestly, he could go his entire life without having to do one of those.

Outside of rooms A and D were these giant paper clips, three on top of three, each listed as patient 1, 2 and so on above the clips. Outside of room D was a paper clipped under patient 4, with a list of patients, procedures and times. There were only 4 items on the agenda.

At 8:30 there was an esophagus, at 10 a barium swallow, 2 o'clock had a wrist arthrogram, followed by a steroid hip injection at 3.

Roxas was relieved. It was a light work load, and nobody was going to have to stick barium in anybody's butt.

There was also a lot of time in between the exams. Each of the interns were allotted three hours of study time to take when they wanted during the week, but Roxas wasn't prepared to take any time on day one. He didn't even have any homework for his online classes yet. He definitely didn't want to sit around and nothing all day either.

This was going to be a long day.

Roxas spent a good 10 minutes wandering aimlessly in his assigned room, he wasn't exactly sure what he should be doing.

Then a tall, bulky man came in stopping at the console located just after the doorway entrance. Roxas wandered over by him to see what he was doing, the man reached behind the computer monitor, turning some sort of switch.

The man, named Lexaeus as deemed by his badge, gave Roxas a small glance. "I'm turning on the machine, first you turn this," he gestured at the knob he just turned. "Then when the computers all booted you turn on the console. This one button turns on both console boards." His tone was gruff and informative.

Roxas took a long wandering look at the control booth they stood at, the counter had a console on either side of the monitor that set in the center. He looked to the one at the left. This one had six little sticks about 2 inches away from each other on the bottom row. Each little button had a little picture on them, and the buttons themselves were hardly buttons, they didn't rise up above the board much. Roxas trailed his fingers over them, he doubted that he'd noticed whether he had hit the button or not.

"This console on the right isn't used much in this room. It's for the actual tube, not the fluoro machine. Sometimes you'll have to use it and set a manual technique to shoot your x-rays with though," the tech explained, noticing Roxas' trailing eyes. He continued, "This one here is for the fluoro tube," he started pressing buttons and pulling the white levers and Roxas watched through the large lead window separating them from the fluoro tube and table as the table and tube moved. "Go ahead and play around with those," the man said as he walked out of the room.

Roxas played around with the controls half-heartedly, watching the table tilt at the head. He was exhausted, hadn't been able to sleep the night before.

Lexaeus came back in the room after another minute or two, going to the foot of the table, the one closest to the half walled window by the control booth, and slid a foot board on.

"First patient is here," he remarked without looking at Roxas.

The table turned up, until it was entirely standing up.

Lexaeus attached a handle to the side of the table.

It was then Tifa stuck her head in the doorway, "Hey Rox, come on out here." Pence was already out there, standing by one of the computers. "Okay so, we're going to go grab Olette now on our way to get you guys badges. Follow me guys,"

Tifa rushed out the break door and led them through the maze of a hospital, taking them into the radiography/CT area where Olette sat with two techs.

"Hey Olette, we're going to get badges now."

"Okay," Olette replied standing up to follow.

More turns led by Tifa, and the four of them were then in a small security waiting room. A side exit out of the hospital on one side, the door they came in on the other and then the door they were facing and Tifa was knocking in front of them. Tifa touched her badge to a little security punch pad and the door beeped before she opened it and walked in.

"Okay so there's a person in there now so we'll just wait out here for now," she said walking back out the security door.

The silence that followed her statement was all of one second before she started talking in her quick manner again, "Now guys, I don't want to say names or anything, but in past years we've had students who just, they weren't aggressive enough. When those orders for x-rays start coming in you guys need to grab them and do them. Of course you're going to be nervous, but you just got to get in there and do it, you're going to keep being nervous until you just get in there and do. Otherwise the techs are just going to look and think that you don't want to be here, yanno? This isn't a shadow anymore, you guys need to be doing the exams."

Roxas started drowning her out after that, it was day one…he just wanted to get accumulated to his new settings before he started going crazy on all the exams. Plus, he was in fluoro, where he felt the least trained…except for maybe for whatever awaited him in his OR rotation. He didn't think anything would be too wrong with observing on the first day…

"…-xas, Roxas!" Tifa and the other two interns were staring at him, waiting for a response.

He looked at them stupidly, "Huh?"

"It's your turn to get your badge."

Roxas went into the open security door, sitting where the guy told him to sit, smiling when he was told to smile and answering blonde and blue when asked what his hair and eye color were. The guard went around clicking a few things and 5 minutes later a badge with Roxas name and face popped out of the car machine. The guard hooked it up with a little clip and slipped on a hospital code card behind the picture. Handing it to Roxas and instructing him that it had to be clipped on above the waste. Roxas nodded before walking wordlessly back out the door.

Tifa took Olette back to the ER and Roxas and Pence found their way back to the main department. The rest of the day was kind of a blur for Roxas. He was glad that his tech for the day didn't seem intent on forcing Roxas to do anything. For the most part he went about on his own without paying Roxas any mind. That didn't bother Roxas one bit. He just wanted to make it to 4 o'clock.

When 4 finally rolled around the three students packed their backpacks, and left the hospital together, exchanging their thoughts on their first day. Roxas and Pence had parked on the roof and bid farewell to Olette on level 3 of the parking structure.

As Roxas waved goodbye to Pence, he thought about how long this internship was going to take, and about how unprepared he really felt for it all.

A/N: This is probably a bit rushed, I wanted to get the baseline down so I could get to September while it's well...still September. Probably will rewrite this chapter eventually.


End file.
